1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for managing large global computer networks. More specifically, the invention relates to methods and systems for monitoring software used within the computer network and for enforcing software use policies of the computer network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Companies with large, geographically dispersed computer networks can reduce the licensing fees paid to software vendors by buying only enough licenses to cover the concurrent use of the software across the company. In order to comply with license agreements, the company must be able to monitor software use across the entire organization. Third party software monitoring programs such as, for example, the SMS 2003 product available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. enable a company to comply with the license agreement by monitoring the number of instances of the software executing on the network's computers. The SMS 2003 product, however, is site oriented, which makes monitoring over a geographically dispersed network difficult. Furthermore, current software monitoring packages only monitor usage but cannot enforce license policies. Therefore, there remains a need for methods and systems that can monitor software usage across a geographically dispersed computer network and enforce software policies.